


Ephemeral

by heylifeitsemily



Series: Across Dimensions [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Character is unnamed - Freeform, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Height Differences, Original Character(s), Reader-Insert, Snippets, So canonical character death, mature for language, meant to be Beth's mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:11:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylifeitsemily/pseuds/heylifeitsemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s a guy gotta do to get some – some plutonic quartz around here?”</p><p>Rick falls in love, then out of it, and doesn't get the chance to try again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ephemeral

“What’s a guy gotta do to get some – some plutonic quartz around here?”

The secretary does not respond, simply points behind her with one hand, the other two preoccupied with some fastidious typing. He takes a drink from his flask and strolls towards the back room, opening the door and letting it slam shut behind him. He’s tucking it back into his pocket when something pink, disk-shaped and gelatinous races into his vision on a collision course with his forehead.

“Watch it!” He hears as he flattens himself the ground, the disk embedding itself in the steel wall behind him and sizzling. He’s scrambling to his feet with a hand on his portal gun when he hears the click of heels on the white tile. A woman, a short, unassuming human woman with a look of concern painted across her features, is holding the thing and petting it softly.

“JESUS CHRIST – WHAT THE – WHAT THE FUCK, LADY?” He’s pocketed his portal gun and has his watch aimed towards her, finger ready on the trigger as she looks towards him and raises an eyebrow.

“You dodged it, you’re fine. Calm down,” she says, turning towards the lab bench. The quartz he’s looking for is sitting there, all pink and glow-y and illegal, and he’s sort of tempted to just shoot her and take it. Nonchalance in the face of life-threatening situations is kind of his thing. He doesn’t have a patent on it, but like, he doesn’t want this side character infringing on what has been firmly established as his territory.

She notices him eyeing it and places his would-be killer into a glass cylinder, sealing the top and giving it a scolding look. Turning and wiping her hands on her lab coat, she peers up at him.

“Do you need something? I’m in the middle of some shit right now,” she says, nodding towards what he has now christened the bad mama jama.

“Oh, are you? Are you in the – in the middle of something? I’m so sorry to have interrupted you with my near-death experience. It was really inconvenient of me to do that, huh?”

Her lip quirks up and she checks her watch, a look of comprehension spreading over her face.  
  
“Y’know, after everything that I’ve heard, I didn’t think Rick Sanchez was going to be such a whiny bitch.”

“After everything that I – that I’ve heard, I didn’t think the brains behind the sketchy illegal goods trafficking was gonna be so goddamn reckless.”

She smiles at him, innocuous and reminiscent of a schoolgirl as she shoves her fists into her coat’s pockets and bounces up and down on her heels. It’s cute. He knows it’s not allowed to be cute, since he’s heard rumours of what she does to people who cross her. In horrifying, gruesome detail. 

She then gestures to the wares of the lab, to the endless shelves, but he’s a bit more preoccupied with the way the movement opens up her lab coat and the bit of skin revealed around her neckline. Her clothes are all incredibly workplace appropriate, but he gets a real gauge of just how tiny a person she is, seeing the way the likely stolen clothes seem to hang off her. He’d dwarf her standing next to her. Or over her.

“What do you want, Mr. Sanchez?"

He wipes the dribble off his chin and rattles off a list of materials, groaning at how annoying it is that she needs his help to reach stuff on the higher shelves. Now he has to go and fucking collect shit, like he’s not the customer in the business transaction.

She makes polite conversation, he responds with biting ferocity, she with suitable teasing retorts. The laundry list of assorted technical junk he had requested has grown threefold, and she accommodates without question, giving him a knowing look as she organizes everything.

“You busy later?” She asks.

He says yes, takes his things, and leaves.

* * *

He’s back 3 months later, with another unreasonably long list of things dancing around in his head and an Uzharian egg in his pocket because he remembered that she’d always wanted to get her hands on one. She gives him a fond look as she cradles it in her hands, is just as simultaneously grating and pleasant – 

No, pleasant makes it sound like they’re having a sweet and thoughtless chat about the weather, and that’s not what’s happening at all – she verbally spars with him, matching him blow for blow and it turns him on to no end. No, it’s not amiable, it’s satisfying. She’s just as irritating and _satisfying_ to be around as the last time, and then she charges him with no discount, which he thinks is a little fucking outrageous because of all the shit he went through just to get hell-spawn egg for her.

And then he remembers that it’s a gift and he’d told her that he just stumbled across it, because he has much better things to do than traverse the galaxy to bring some girl a fucking gift so that she’ll like him.

She asks him out again.

He says no.

* * *

The third visit is a year and a half after the last, she’s upgraded to a larger facility for all her illegal activities, and he feels weirdly guilty when she catches his eye and waves him over. She’s dyed her hair some obnoxiously bright colour that manages to be both offensive to his eyes and strangely aesthetically pleasing.

“You’re da – daddy issues have finally manifested in physical form, I see.” He gestures towards her with the open flask, a bit of his current poison spilling out onto the floor.

She notifies him that the permanently windswept, early greying look really works for him, then leads the way.

It goes as it always does, until the very last moment, where he’s throwing all his crap into the portal and about to step through himself. He stops, looking over to see her hunched over some elaborate blueprints, with one pencil behind her ear and another in her hand as she scribbles furiously, seemingly having already forgotten him.

“You’re not gonna – not gonna try your luck?” 

She shrugs, still writing. He walks through the portal.

* * *

He returns the next day, and starts to walk the same direction as before when the secretary – a different one, with 2 arms instead of 3 – points him in the opposite direction. Towards her office.

He walks with purpose, absentmindedly imagining varying ways the previous secretary could've been disposed of. He's in the middle of a grisly scenario involving horses and hot pokers when he kicks the door open, shoots a portal into existence and tells her they’re going to get ice cream.

“And if I say no?”

“You’re lying to – to yourself. You – you wanna get with this.” He gestures to himself, the ever present spit on his chin, half-tucked shirt and slacks that he’d outgrown about a decade ago.

“Even if I did wanna _get with that_ ,” she says, pushing herself away from her desk and sending her rolling chair from one side of the room to another, “I couldn’t. Running a crime syndicate is more than just violent displays of dominance and witty banter, you know.”

He scoffs and mutters something sarcastic about the terrible working conditions a CEO must have. He grabs her wrist and pulls her to him, the chair spinning across the room as they disappear through the portal. They pop out in some 70's themed ice cream parlor, she elbows him in the nose, and orders the two of them sundaes as he kneels, clutching his face. She waits for him to sit down on the other side of the booth.

“Before you ask, that _was_ necessary. Gotta establish some boundaries,” she says around a mouthful of Rocky Road.

He takes the broken nose in stride, but insults her for her rudimentary and frankly uninspired choice in ice cream flavours.

* * *

He explores the universe, dragging her along and discovering new, incredible things together, things you'd have to see to believe. She's somehow too much like him and not at all, happily letting him take the lead on their countless adventures and reveling in the subsequent chaos. He can get stoned and make the messes, and she can relish in cleaning them up. 

That’s his explanation, anyway, to a bartender on some random desert planet for how anyone in the goddamn universe could stand his obnoxious ass for more than two minutes.

There’s a vague mumble of ‘codependency’ as she walks in, takes the seat next to him and makes friendly, diffusing conversation with the guy. By the time they leave, she’s sweet-talked the owner into putting Rick’s _adventures_ into the wide world of kidney failure on the house.

* * *

 She’s breathless underneath him, laughing as she grabs at his coat and flipping them so he’s on the floor of the ship. She sits up, straddling him, the vast expanse of stars and quasars and infinity through the dome’s glass forming the background to what might possibly be the greatest image he’s ever encountered.

* * *

A laser soars past his face, searing his cheek and boring a hole through the head of the deformed arthropod choking the life out of him. He shoves the double-crossing bastard off, hears a satisfying squelch and the clipped sound of his breath coming out through clenched teeth. 

She’s kneeling over him in a flash, giving him a quick once over and her face falling at the sight of the red and pink welts forming on his cheek. The bruises and cuts littered over her arms combined with the dirt smudged on her face gives this sort of wounded warrior look that really gets him going, but the concern on her face tells him whatever crazy adrenaline-fueled sex they could’ve had is now out of the question.

He coughs as she moves his head to lie in her lap, and she strokes his hair as they look out over the horizon. This galaxy has two suns, and they’re both panting and soaked in sweat within a couple minutes.

She’s sun-burned, skin peeling off her nose as she presses a kiss to his forehead.

“God, you – you act like I’m at the end of my rope here. It’s a burn. I know your feminine brain is hard – hardwired to jump to the worst possible conclusion but – “

“It looks worse than it is,” she finishes, in perhaps a less lackluster or profane way than he was intending. She strokes the inflamed skin softly, a flare of tingling pain flittering and then dissipating.

“If you like – like my face so much, why don’t you – just marry it?” He hisses.

“Really, that’s your fantastic one-liner? That’s what you’re gonna go with it?” She scrapes her nail just under the edge of the burn.

“It’s not my fault we both have heat exhaustion because some – _someone_ is too busy being sentimental to get us back into the car, where there’s air conditioning and condoms.”

She laughs, quietly, and it’s so gentle and personal that the situation skyrockets into unfamiliarly intimate territory. 

“Whadaya say?” He grunts, suddenly feeling very, very exposed.

“If I can lug your ass back to the car and whip up some kind of salve, sure thing.” She shifts so that her hands are under his armpits.

“What – about the other thing? Watch it,” he snaps as she drops him a bit, his feet scrambling to find footing and knee colliding with a rock.

“Other thing?” He tenses, wondering if he should turn back before making a stupid decision. The kind that might make him change timelines.

“Yeah.”

“The marrying thing?” He has one arm over her shoulder and her supporting most of his weight, and he feels the movement of her jaw as she asks the question.

“Yeah.”

She leans him against the side of the ship, eyeing him as she opens the passenger’s side.

“You want to get married?” She wipes sweat off her brow and extends a hand, ready to help him into the seat.

He shrugs, not taking her hand. They watch each other expectantly.

He’s maybe 10 seconds from whipping out the portal gun and leaving the dimension when she shrugs, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the ship. She takes care in fastening his seatbelt, hands lingering on his chest, affectionate and comforting in a way that makes his heartbeat slow and his cheeks warm. He wonders when those gentle touches became more reassuring than arousing.

She straps herself in, turns off the parking breaks, and does a quick 360 of the surrounding desert before taking off.

They’re off planet, the blazing light of the two suns slowly being overpowered by the hum of the car’s AC. She cranks it to the highest setting, the fans whirring furiously, and leans back in her chair. Her grip loosens as she looks out at the void.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

* * *

“Beth’s a little tame, don’t you think?” 

The kid’s wrapped in a pink blanket, the sort of pastel pink that’s supposed to remind you of flower petals but really reminds him of 901 PM vomit.

She’s asleep in her mother’s arms, and he – her father – he just sort of stares and thinks of all the ways that they baby-proofed the house and the sensible van they bought and how this is supposed to be the natural progression of love or whatever the fuck with the marriage and baby carriage and he’s struck extremely hard by the realization that he well and truly does not belong here, in this brightly lit hospital room with the mother of his child.

“It’s – it’s safe. Makes you feel like you can trust her. With us at – at the PTA meetings, she’s gonna need all the – help she – can get.”

* * *

Beth walks from the room frantically wiping tears from her cheeks because God forbid she shows emotion; God forbid she wants her father’s attention. It isn’t exactly phrased like that, but that’s the gist, and he takes a swig from his flask as she reprimands him.

“It was her birthday, Rick. You can’t just miss this sort of thing. I mean, c’mon, how many years of therapy are you going to set her up for?”

It’s what they do; he fucks up (it usually involves Beth and the irreparable emotional damage he’s apparently inflicting), she confronts him, he’s flippant and callous, she caves. It’s a routine they’ve developed, but it’s not the cycle that pisses him off. It’s that she never follows through, always ending with some joke or offhand repartee. Never because it’s funny, never to make things lighter.

To appease him. She just keeps on sacrificing herself to keep him happy, to keep Beth from hearing them fight, and he remembers when she’d go head to head with him over the smallest things, when she’d drink him under a table unapologetically, when everything revolved around their shared successes instead of his failures.

And more, she doesn’t consider them to be his failures. No, they’re hers, because everything is her fault, and she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. She feels responsible for him, and he feels responsible for walking into her warehouse when he could’ve gone just about anywhere to get some illegal quartz.

* * *

She hands him a screwdriver, and the pliers, and the rubidium, and whatever else he needs to finish his current life-altering project. Only it isn’t life-altering, it usually just becomes briefly life-threatening and then forgotten altogether. 

“I enable you,” she says. It’s not a huge epiphany, just something they’ve both been ignoring for years and might finally have to confront.

“Yep.” He tightens a screw.

There are dried tears on her cheeks as she moves to lean against the lab bench, not in his way but still intruding. She’s holding herself, eyes glassy, and there’s a hollow apathy in it that he recognizes as his own default expression. She takes a slow, shuddering breath before leaving.

He distantly thinks that he’s supposed to follow her.

* * *

“I’m gonna - gonna go grab some ice cream.” 

“Yeah?”

“What, is that a crime?”

She doesn’t take the bait, just crosses her arms over her chest and gives him that knowing look. Beth is out at some science club, future doctors of America or some shit, and that means that mommy dearest could tear into him right now without letting their nuclear family façade slip. They’ve had shouting matches for less.

She looks towards Beth’s place at the dinner table, and the crayon drawings on the fridge, now crumpled beyond recognition. Beth is too old for those mindless doodles now, has been for years, and he’s sort of grateful for it when he glances at the photo of the girls at Christmas and his lab-coat cladded form drawn in with painstaking craftsmanship. It makes him feel like shit, for both her utter lack of artistic ability and the tightness in his chest.

He turns back to find her staring, this mix of disappointment and fear and longing and the slightest, barest smidge of hope. She only breaks his gaze when her eyes start to tear up, and she wipes them off her cheeks before turning back to the papers in front of her.  
  
“Grab me a Rocky Road?”

* * *

When he comes back, into his daughter’s home and her more or less open arms, he arrives on the front door step with a pint of Rocky Road, pedestrian though it is. She isn’t there to enjoy it.

**Author's Note:**

> Should I write a more comprehensive thing with endless amounts of banter? Because I want to. Also this is not edited and I wrote it all in one go to avoid studying for exams, so if you see anything please point it out.


End file.
